Never Completely at Home Again
by CamsthiSky
Summary: The shower's been running for thirty minutes, and the longer it stays on, the more Bruce thinks that maybe something's wrong.


**Thanks to libbykiel for helping me out! Here's a fic as a thank you :)**

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The shower's been running for thirty minutes, and the longer it stays on, the more Bruce thinks that maybe something's wrong. He knocks on the bathroom door and calls out, "Dick? You've been in there for a while."

 _"I'm fine!"_ Dick snaps from beyond the closed door. _"Go away!"_

Bruce lets his forehead fall forward to meet the wood of the door. It's barely been a year since Dick had come to live with him and he still feels _completely_ out of his depth. He wonders if he ever _won't_ feel this way. He doesn't regret taking Dick in, but sometimes he wonders if this is really the best thing for _Dick._ God knows the kid deserves a loving home with loving parents and everything that Bruce can't provide.

It doesn't help that every once in a while something like _this_ will happen. Where Dick, usually so open and happy and energetic, withdraws. Bruce heart clenches in his chest thinking about how _not_ prepared he is to look after this kid.

Bruce and Dick may have gone through something similar—losing their parents, their lives changed in a single moment—but Dick isn't Bruce. Dick's so much _better._

Bruce knocks again. Thirty-five minutes. He's been in there too long.

"Dick," Bruce calls out again. "Open up."

Dick makes a noise like he's choking and screams, _"Leave me alone!"_

"Open the door," Bruce demands, banging a fist against the wood.

The expected retort doesn't come, and Bruce's throat feels like it's closing up. He forces himself into a state a calm, reaching above the door for the lock pick he keeps in case of emergencies (he'd learned his lesson after he'd had to talk Dick through a panic attack from the other side of this door, and he doesn't want to let something like that happen ever again). He sticks the picks in and starts on the door, all the while warning Dick, "I'm coming in."

Dick still doesn't say anything, and it isn't until Bruce is through the door, waving away steam, and pulling the curtain back that he realizes why.

"Dick," Bruce breathes.

The ten-year-old boy is curled up on the floor of the tub, rubbing his own arms raw with a desperation that leaves Dick breathless. Bruce spurs into immediate action. He turns off the water and grabs the nearest towel, and then he wraps the boy up in the fluffy towel and pulls him out of the tub. Dick sobs out something unintelligible, looking like he's about to shake apart, but Dick doesn't fight him.

Bruce doesn't hesitate to collapse against the wall, slide to the ground, and let the shivering boy curl up in his lap.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, but every single time Bruce feels so completely incapable of being what Dick needs in times like these.

Still, Bruce rocks Dick back and forth in what he hopes is soothing, brushing back the wet hair sticking to Dick's forehead. Dick's blue eyes are rimmed with red, and he doesn't seem like he's all here.

He mumbles something Bruce can't make out.

"It's okay," Bruce hushes him, even though he knows it isn't.

Dick buries his head in Bruce's shoulder, and wrapped up in a towel like this, Bruce is painfully reminded of how young Dick is, and he wonders if this was ever the right decision. Instead of helping Dick find a way back to the light, Bruce has brought him further into the darkness, and as Robin, Dick's become this pillar of light that shines so bright in the gloom of this life as Batman.

But sometimes, times like now, Dick's light flickers, and Bruce can't help but think it must be _his_ fault. He'd brought Dick in, helped Dick become Robin, showed Dick how to embrace his fear and fight through it anyways, and Dick had taken to his training quickly.

But Bruce brought Dick on patrol with him, and he knows that the longer that Dick's Robin, the more of the night he seems to understand, and Bruce thinks that if he could give Dick a normal childhood, he would.

But he can't. He doesn't know how.

And besides, he's not sure if Dick would even let him if he tried.

But he has a ten-year-old boy in his arms, panicking and sobbing, and Bruce thinks that maybe he shouldn't have brought Dick home all those years ago. That he should have just found a way to make sure Dick found a home that would have been good for him.

But he'd been selfish. Bruce had felt a connection to this kid, a brightness barely dimmed by the passing of his parents. Bruce saw a kid that was so much stronger than he himself was, and he thinks that he'd thought that maybe they could heal together.

He doesn't regret it, but by god, as he sits here and murmurs to Dick—his ward. His son—reassurances and Dick's shaking slows but doesn't quite stop, he wishes that he could spare this boy some of his pain. He'd take it all on himself in a heartbeat.

"You're okay," Bruce says, and he wishes so much that it were true. "You're okay, Dick. I'm here. I've got you."

That, at least, isn't a lie. Bruce is here, and he's not going anywhere.


End file.
